Her Prince
by Queen of Lunacy
Summary: Their smiles were fake and their conversations strained. The fairytale love story seemed to be tearing at the seams. When had this happened? She couldn't remember; the story of two people never meant to be. Prequel to "Black Coffee"


Disclaimer: I do not in any way own the fabulous work of J.K Rowling and intend no copyright infringement through this story (have NO idea what that meant…)

Hello my faithful readers, it's the second fanfiction already! I pat myself warmly on the to set things straight, this story is a prequel to my other story "Black Coffee", so please please please please read that after you read this, or this after you read that :D

And I would like to dedicate this story to the fabulous "icyclouds" who gave me the idea to write this story! And without any further ado…

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Her Prince

She stood up and stretched, yawning so loudly it woke up the man sleeping next to her. He grumbled something about it being too early and rolled over. She laughed and jumped on him. She unsuccessfully tried to get him up; frustrated she stomped out of the room.

"Fine! Sleep, but I'm getting the bathroom!" He sat up and looked around. She walked very slowly towards the bathroom. He stood up and they both looked at each other. At the same time they both started to sprint towards the bathroom but she got there first. She slammed the door and collapsed on the floor, her chest heaving with laughter. It was a game they played everyday, who could get the only bathroom first, and she always won (and if she didn't he let her).

The hot water felt good on her cold skin; it had been a freezing night and she had thought she'd have to be set in front of a fire to thaw. She scrubbed her body and got out when she felt sufficiently cleaned. She wrapped herself in a fluffy towel and stood in the steam filled room just savoring the heat. She always stopped just to appreciate life, to inhale the smell of freshly baked bread, to listen to the laughter of a child or stroke the silky petals of the roses he had just given her.

She stepped out and shivered. She ran to the bedroom and dressed quickly, pulling on the warmest things she could find. She ran outside to find he had already locked himself up in the bathroom. She liked to joke that he took longer than her to get ready.

She sat down in the window seat he had made for her. He had charmed it to change colours and material everyday. She sat down and sighed as she ran her hands over the deep red velvet. She pressed her face against the window and watched the world.

Snowflakes slowly drifted down from the heavens, as if God had cut the beautiful shapes out of the tears of angels just to see them smile again. The world was covered in a layer of snow; it covered up all the imperfections and replaced it with its silver and white splendor.

He stepped out and stared at her, a look of disgust flitted across his features. He ran a hand through his perfect blonde hair and walked towards her. She smiled at him and tucked a strand of curly hair behind her ear.

"Let's go love," he said. Her face brightened as soon as she heard the nickname. She jumped up and reached for his hand. They exited their apartment and walked down the street towards a coffee hut.

She walked through the door and sighed in relief. It felt so good to be in the warmth again. She plopped down on one of the huge armchairs and felt herself sinking in. He walked towards the front and ordered a cup of black coffee.

"You want some?" He asked offering the steaming cup. She inhaled the scent deeply, and smiled. It smelt like him. She nodded and she took a sip. The black liquid burnt her lips and tasted bitter. But he loved it, so she didn't say a word. She watched him. He seemed to be avoiding her eyes. She shrugged her shoulders at herself and picked up a random wizard gossip magazine. She hated these things, but she hadn't brought a book with her.

Not taking her eyes off a page which had "WEIRD SISTERS' SCANDAL" painted across the pages she asked "Why are you so quiet today?" She failed to see the contemptuous glance he cast her.

"Just tired, had a late night last night." She bit back the response that they didn't have a late night, they went to sleep together, very early in fact. She thought about the past few days, his affection always seemed strained. When had these dangerous cracks appeared in their fairytale love story?

"Love, I want to ask you something," she looked up immediately and he stopped himself from smirking at the control he had over her. "My mother is having a ball of sorts tonight, for most of the wizarding community, and she really would like you to come."

She regarded him with a suspicious glance thinking he was joking. When she realized he was serious she only just stopped herself from dancing. "YES!!" she screamed, attracting glares from all around the room. Talking in a much softer tone she said "But what will I wear?"

"Don't worry your pretty little head, my mother picked out a beautiful white dress for you." Her vibrant brown eyes danced with excitement. He half heartedly listened to her giddily talk about how wonderful it would be, how she'd always wanted to go to a ball and how excited she was.

They exited the coffee hut an hour later. They wandered around trying to pass the time until she started jumping up and down. Seeing the strange looks they were receiving he cast her an embarrassed glance.

"Look! Look! It's the Wizard's Rose Park! Let's go there; I heard they have the most beautiful rose garden in wizarding London! You know roses are my favourite flowers," She said already starting to run towards the entrance. He sighed in annoyance and started to run after her.

She sprinted so fast that her sides ached but she still had a smile on her face. The world was going past her so fast and she felt as if she was flying. She didn't think about him while she ran. She just focused on the flying colours that danced around her as she ran. She didn't care where she was going, she just wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of ordinary life, the pull at her heart whenever her best friends forgot her or the agony that she felt whenever her Prince wasn't there.

She stopped so abruptly that she almost fell over from the momentum. She collapsed on the hill she had stopped at and glanced around her. Breath-taking roses surrounded her. Their scent was almost dizzying. She felt intoxicated by the heavy aroma of the love flowers.

She watched him still running. He was a much slower runner (he went much faster on a broom). When he finally reached her, he didn't collapse on the ground like she had, he sat so gracefully. Not a single hair was out of place and his face wasn't red at all, it was as if he hadn't just chased a crazy girl sprinting through a park. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared perfection in the face. Her perfection; her Prince.

"Aren't they wonderful?" She said wistfully. She wished she was as lovely as they ruby flowers swaying in the light breeze. What a perfect day. The azure sky was peppered with the fluffiest of clouds as if someone had hand picked the best ones. The sun lit up the sky with its golden hues. What a perfect day. But what was that feeling of foreboding?

It crept up on her. It whispered cruelly at the back of her mind. The sky didn't seem as clear anymore. It was as if a cleaner had just tipped a bucket of dirty water onto it. Her mind seemed to analyze everything. Why was he so quiet? Where was the charming smile that usually adorned his flawless face? What had happened to her Prince?

They sat in silence and every so often she would think about breaking it. It made her nervous. The silence seemed so loud. It resonated through her. It tore apart her dreams as if they were pieces of tissue paper. It cracked her fantasies as if they were made of glass. It didn't feel right.

"Let's go." Two words. That's it. Two stupid little words to break a seemingly unbreakable silence. Only he could do that. Her Prince.

She slowly nodded and stood up with his help. They began walking and suddenly everything was normal. He smiled fondly at her and played with her fingers. And just as they reached their apartment he swung her around and kissed her. It made tingles shoot up her fingers and cheesy muggle songs about love played in her head. So cliché. Only her Prince.

She floated inside on a cloud and was too caught up in the smell of black coffee and peppermint to watch his lips curl in disgust as he wiped his mouth. Such huge things the mind misses simply because we don't want to see it.

Getting ready was the best part of going to a party. The actual party is always disappointing, it was like going to prom without a boyfriend to dance with. And after the party you were always left with that empty feeling; the feeling of your expectations being shot down. When you get ready for a party you're still excited about the party, you'll look in the mirror and feel absolutely gorgeous (until you get there and stand next to the equivalent of Heidi Klum). And it was a ball! Almost every muggle girl wanted to go to a ball after reading Cinderella, hoping they would find their prince. But she already had hers.

When he presented her with the dress she felt like fainting. It was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. It made the outfit she'd worn for the Yule Ball look like a filthy rag. It was floor length and the purest white (he claimed brighter than the coat of a unicorn). It looked like someone had taken a thousand diamonds and ground them into a fine sparkling dust and sprinkled it over the dress. It was strapless, but adorning the left corner was a blood red silk flower that was finely dusted in silver. It was the only colour but it completed the dazzling garment.

She took a long bubble bath using only the most expensive soaps and bubbles that she only used for special occasions. She looked at her hair and sighed. Though it was the thing that defined her, it was also the bane of her existence. She decided she would straighten it using her best friend; Sleakezy's Hair Potion.

She slipped on the dress and ran her hands over the material. It felt almost like she was wearing an invisibility cloak; the material rippled under her hands. She felt a pang as she thought of all the adventures she'd have with her ex-best friends with that cloak. She decided to forget it, tonight was her night!

She piled her newly straightened hair into a bun and let a few strands frame her face. She wondered if she could be bold and wear lipstick that matched the hue of the flower, and shaking away the bookworm in her, she grabbed the tube and applied it. To complete her look she lined her eyes with black and dusted her face with silver.

Looking over herself, she couldn't hold back a smile. This was one of the few times in her life when she actually felt beautiful. The ugly duckling had been trapped in her beloved books and the swan had erupted. Slipping on a pair of silver high heels she stepped outside.

"Darling we should…" He trailed off as he stared at her. His eyes travelled from the bottom of her gown to her innocent brown eyes. He smiled at her, and the smile made her heart warm up.

"You like it?" She said softly spinning around for her. He nodded, and inside she was jumping up and down because he was speechless. Speechless because of her beauty. If she wasn't wearing the wretched high heels she would have burst into her own version of an Irish river dance, but she made do with smiling even wider.

He held out his hand and they apparated together. The colours swirled around her in a vortex of rainbows. Almost everyone hated the feeling of apparating (the feeling of being squeezed through a drinking straw) but she secretly loved it. Inside the apparating world it was very simple, the only thoughts were "I hope I get to the right place". It was nicely numbing to apparate.

For the first time in her life she landed quite gracefully after apparating. She looked around and gasped. They were standing in a garden, but oh! The garden housed over a million different types of flowers, both muggle and wizarding. Their outrageously bright colours did not clash and seemed to compliment each other. They let out a delicious smell, making you feel rather hypnotized. The walls of the garden were draped in curtains of emerald ivy that flowered silver buds. She looked at the night sky and smiled at the stars that twinkled at her. The moon smiled wisely at her. It was as if someone had placed a giant opal on a bed of black velvet and sprinkled tiny white beads around it. Absolutely beautiful. But did she expect anything less from her Prince?

The actual ball was inside the manor, the garden was just a place for cocktails. They finally reached the entrance of the ballroom after fake smiling at about a dozen people and ignoring the glares from various other guests. Ignorant fools. But her Prince would protect her… Wouldn't he?

After entering the ballroom she didn't have time to look around before she was being mauled by a… beautiful blonde woman covered in jewels.

"Darling, how nice to finally meet you" she drawled kissing her on either cheek. "Come, let me introduce you to our other guests." She extended her hand which looked like it could snap off under the weight of her gold bangles, not wanting to upset the complete stranger she timidly accepted the hand. As they maneuvered through the crowds, she wondered to herself "Who is this woman?" but then it clicked in her mind. Blonde hair, pale skin, it was her Prince's mother. She studied her, they looked rather alike and she seemed very nice. She scolded herself for being nervous about meeting her, she certainly wasn't an evil step mother.

As she was dragged through the maze of elegant ladies and handsome men she looked around the ballroom. The ceiling was about a hundred feet high, and was bewitched to look like the ceiling of Hogwarts. Nostalgia immediately rushed through her, like any other time when she thought back to her childhood. The floor was made of jade marble, with veins of ivory running through it. It was polished to perfection, and one could see their reflection in it. Silver orbs floated through the air as the sole source of light, and an ice sculpture that nearly touched the ceiling was in the centre.

She was mesmerized by the beauty of it. It was made of ice, yet it looked like it had been carved out of diamonds. She cocked her head to the side as she tried to make out what it depicted, it was rather abstract. But after intently studying for quite some time she still couldn't figure it out. Giving up, she finally paid attention to where her hostess was taking her only to find they had stopped in front of a couple. It was the dash of red hair that caught her attention. She felt her heart beat quicker and looked around for her Prince, where was he? She needed him! He was the only one who had protected him when that wretched man with the red hair and the stupid savior with piercing green eyes had broken her heart.

As soon as she thought of those piercing green eyes he appeared. It seemed so ironic, this was meant to be her perfect night, and yet these stupid purebloods and ex-best friends were ruining it. He had a scantily clad girl on each arm and his smirk rivaled the one of her Prince. Her only option was to run, but the hostess suddenly tightened her grip on her arm. She grimly took back the comment of her not being an evil step mother

She felt as if she would start hyperventilating. The room seemed to be closing in on her and the world rushed by in a myriad of colours, but it didn't feel pleasant, like when you apparate, it felt wrong. It felt like the colours were mocking her, ripping apart her heart. Her worst fears were surrounding her, and boxing her into a corner. Where was her Prince?

And he suddenly appeared and her heart beat slowed down just by looking at his statuesque features. He had brought a friend, she dimly remembered him from Hogwarts. She smiled from ear to ear and reached out her hand to him. He looked at the hand stretched towards him and ignored it.

"What's the mudblood doing 'ere?" His friend asked. She patiently waited for her Prince to protect her, to torture him for daring to call his love such a filthy name. But he didn't, instead he let out a short bark of laughter.

"Quite a good question, she likes to tag along. She has some romantic idea that we are soul mates or some other ridiculous notion, when really she is just a _pathetic friendless little mudblood_. Well, you know the saying, feed a dog a bone and it will follow you everywhere" There was such venom in his words that she involuntarily flinched. He smirked at the tears forming in her eyes and whispered a spell. All of a sudden she felt something pour onto her and she practically drowned in the substance.

A few minutes later she stood covered in mud. Her white dress was covered in the thick brown substance and the tears she had been trying to stop flowed down freely. The laughter started only after she started hysterically crying. It boomed in her ears and deafened her. She spun around trying to find the exit but only furthered her embarrassment by slipping and falling down.

"You're finally in the place where you belong, mudblood, on the floor." He sneered at her and she silently begged that this was all just a nightmare. But it wasn't, and it also wasn't the end to her torture. For his big finale he threw her a bone and said in a sadistic voice "Woof woof".

That was all she could take, she got up and ran out the door, as the laughter got even louder. _Everyone_ was laughing. No one offered to help her; no one had even the smallest bit of remorse. It was the entertainment for the evening; a ball was not complete without entertainment.

There delight in her torture followed her even as she apparated, the laughter rang in her ears as she landed in _their_ apartment and it stayed there for the whole night. It haunted her while she scrubbed her body to get rid of the filth. It haunted her while she took the beautiful dress forever tainted by the evilness of her Prince and burned it. And it haunted her while she lay cuddled in _their_ bed shivering with loneliness and depression.

And in the morning when she woke up with dark shadows around her eyes making her resemble a panda she noticed that all his stuff was gone. But she was too far gone to even care. And as she sat at the kitchen table with that vase of roses he had given her as some sort of testament of his love to her she screamed. She screamed loudly and didn't give a damn about the countless neighbors that she woke up. And when she stopped she picked up the vase and threw it on the floor and watched fascinated at the pieces of glass that littered the floor and glinted in the light. It felt strangely satisfying to break such beauty; she understood why _he _liked to do it. But she would never be so cruel. _Never._

She decided to go to that coffee hut, even though she could risk meeting _him_ there, but she wouldn't let her lost Prince stop her from drinking coffee. She donned her heaviest and most unflattering clothes and went there. She sat down and ignored the whispers that followed her. She idly picked up a random newspaper. Her throat dried as she read the headline. "MUDBLOOD WITCH HUMILIATED AT PUREBLOOD BALL a story by Rita Skeeter"

She checked every newspaper and magazine in the entire damned coffee house and each one had a different variation of that headline. She closed her eyes and silently groaned. _He_ had been planning this. It was obviously some dare that he agreed to. "Why don't you make that mudblood from school believe that you're in love with her, I hear she's quite pathetic nowadays" his friends had probably giggled out on one drunken night, "And then _humiliate_ her at a ball in front of _everyone_!" they continued. Knowing him, he would have been sober and thought it was the perfect dare. He was bored; why not crush someone's self esteem?

And she had been stupid enough to think he actually loved her. So much for the 'smartest witch of her age'. She felt the tears coming and furiously fought them. Her _stupid_ Prince would not get the satisfaction of knowing he broke her. She would be strong! People depended on her! And so she ordered a black coffee and continued to read her newspaper though her eyes only focused on an ad for the newest broom unaware that a certain Prince was watching her from the outside, but left after a few minutes.

And that was the first day Hermione Granger ordered a cup of black coffee. And from that day on she lived in a world of pretend, where no one knew that she spent every night crying and never sleeping. She created a perfect play where she was still strong, and hadn't been affected by the incident at the ball at all. Her life depended on her façade, no one knew the real Hermione Granger, the one who had been abandoned by her best friends and then picked up by the perfect prince, Draco Malfoy who abandoned her again. Nope, no one knew Hermione Granger _at all_, and they never would, because trusting someone with your entire heart and soul was far too risky; she had learnt that one too many times.

AND SCENE! I know that was ULTRA long, but I couldn't find a way to describe everything without making it so long…

So please do tell me what you think, Loved it? Hated it? Thought it was ok? I want to hear so just please review :D, and if you flame please tell me why you don't like it, not just that "it's a piece of shit"

So tell me what you think, and I thank 'icyclouds' once again :D

This has been an author's note from,

_The Queen of Lunacy_


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